10-05-16 Health and Public Safety

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County Council President Morton stated he has a major concern with the allocation and the process in which it is figured out, that is no secret. From day one (1), that was an issue. It is an extremely unfair process. Mr. Murphy stated that was part of the interlocal agreement. County Council President Morton stated that's what he has a problem with, from day one (1). There is also a concern with the lack of transparency in the process. What magnifies this frustration, is we are not even talking about all the money that Mr. Gears kept coming back to the County asking to compensate for personnel. Now still here we are in need of more money. Every time this was brought the Council, it was asking the County for more money. Mr. Agostino stated there were times when he was not asking for just more money. One (1) time we came and asked for a category to allow the on -call people to be hired so we could pay someone up to forty (40) hours of work without benefits. We actually moved money from some accounts to others. Mr. Gears did come for overtime money. That is true. Ms. Etter stated the first time he came is when we realized how far we were going over because the schedule wasn't working. He came back again because we were still not at our point. County Council President Morton stated his point is we did that and now here we are again being asked for $3.4 to $3.8 million. This is what the entire County Council is feeling about this, not just him. Mr. Croymans stated this is why we did those staffing studies so we can bring those numbers up. The problem with the leadership beforehand was we lost so many people that we are in a constant state of turnover. It takes six (6) months to almost nine (9) months to train a dispatcher. Even right now at fully staffed, we have ten (10) who are still in training. Council President Scott asked what is the difference between a call taker and dispatcher. Mr. Croymans responded a call taker basically processes the call. Currently they have no authority to be a dispatcher. The previous director only trained people as call takers and then we lost too many dispatchers. We actually created the overtime monster ourselves based on procedures. Council President Scott asked how much overtime has been spent for this year. Ms. Etter responded roughly $600,000. Mr. Agostino stated he doesn't like the phrase fully staffed. We are using the spots that have been budgeted but we are still understaffed for what we need. Mr. Croymans responded because that staffing is not correct, we have overtime on every shift every day. There is not a day we don't have overtime. G: